Planet Nomads preview (PC)

Planet Nomads won’t be complete until 2019 at the earliest, but we took a sneak peek at this upcoming sci-fi sandbox title by Craneballs.

What we know

Originally a Kickstarter project, Planet Nomads is currently being developed by Craneballs, a Czech studio that until now has only made mobile titles. This makes the game an especially impressive and ambitious undertaking, since Planet Nomads boasts an impressive sense of scale within a sandbox type of environment.

As the title suggests, gameplay takes place on an alien planet, where building and exploration go hand in hand and you have to struggle to stay alive – the planet is inhabited and not always friendly to your cause. You can build structures as well as verhicles, the latter which will also help you venture further into the world. As you go further, you’ll quickly find that the environment can change drastically – as can the opposition.

What we saw

The game launch on Steam’s early access program in late May (2017) and that’s the version we’ve been playing. The game’s been receiving weekly updates ever since the early access version launch, so this preview is likely to be outdated very soon. Check the game’s steam page at http://store.steampowered.com/app/504050/Planet_Nomads/ for the latest information!

What we thought

The game currently feels like a sandbox inside a sandbox – it’s a title that’s still heavily being developed, so today’s somewhat limited scope (in terms of what’s available to build and do) is surely going to be expanded in the near future. Even during the few weeks we had to try it, we’ve already seen brand new elements added to the game that would make a restart play out very differently. Developer Craneballs has an ambitious roadmap ahead of them and we’ll have to see if they can realize it all, but they’re estimating that they’ll be in Early Access for about two years so at least they’re taking their time.

Two years is a long time to wait for people who prefer their game experience to be complete though, so stepping in now is only really an option for those who enjoy seeing a game go through its development stages and want to support the team behind it. If they realize what they set out to do, then this will eventually be a game worth sinking dozens or even hundreds or hours into.